Rep. Michael McCaul says House will do its ‘own thing’ on immigration

Texas Rep. Michael McCaul said Sunday on “Face the Nation” that the members of the House of Representatives plan to “do our own thing” when it comes to immigration legislation, though they will “take a look at” the bill passed in the Senate a few weeks ago.

McCaul, an Austin Republican whose district stretches to the outskirts of Houston, said he believes many pieces of the Senate bill were included to win votes, not to resolve immigration issues.

“What the Senate just passed was, again, a bunch of candy thrown down there — a bunch of assets thrown down there to gain votes, but without a methodical, smart border approach,” McCaul said.

As House Homeland Security Committee chairman, McCaul recently passed a bipartisan immigration bill through his committee that he says could possibly make it to the floor for a vote before the August recess.

“It could be on the floor by July, if not, I think September,” he said. “The discussion is with other reform bills and we’re going regular order in the House that we can get something done by the September time frame.”

Though McCaul’s committee bill is bipartisan, the Texas Republican said he fears that President Barack Obama actually wants the House to fail in passing the legislation so he can blame the house for the failure of immigration reform in the future.

“My concern of the political backdrop could be that the White House would like to see this fail in the House so that it can blame the House of Representatives for that and then try to take back the House of Representatives. And then, all bets are off on his agenda,” he said.

The GOP will hold a conference Wednesday to discuss immigration strategies to be incorporated into a proposal.

Arizona Sen. John McCain preceded McCaul on the program, in which he emphasized that the Senate had no intention to tell the House how to handle immigration, and that the matter must be resolved for the good of the entire country.

“We are not trying to dictate what the House of Representatives should do, and I believe that if they can come up with a bill, we would be more than eager to negotiate with them,” he said. “So then shouldn’t we sit down together and solve this issue? Not only for the good of the Republican Party, but for the good of the nation.”

McCaul expressed dismay at the cost of the Senate immigration plan, saying that he is concerned about the Senate “throwing forty-six billion dollars” at border security “without any strategy, without any definition of operation control.”

“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail,” McCaul went on. “We have no plan and that’s the problem over the last decade within prior administrations.”

Following McCaul’s interview was Rep. Xavier Becerra, a Los Angeles Democrat who said that Republicans are not focusing on the big picture.

“Where we probably disagree is on trying to do this in a piecemeal way, which won’t fix the entire machine. You have to fix the entire machine,” said Becerra, who is one of seven House members from both parties trying to craft a comprehensive, bipartisan package.